Few options for affordable housing in Dana Point

Aug. 15, 2013

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 12:28 p.m.

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Leticia Soto, center, is the apartment manager for the Coffield affordable living complex in Dana Point. She resides there with her five children: Bobbi, 15, left, Diego, 3, Michael, 6, Jaqueline and a fifth not shown. JOSHUA SUDOCK, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Jesus Toscano, 78, has resided at Coffield Apartments in Dana Point with his wife since 1984. They love it there. It is home. Toscano speaks passionately and in great detail about the complex's founder and namesake. JOSHUA SUDOCK, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Jesus Toscano, 78, has resided at Coffield Apartments in Dana Point with his wife since 1984. They love it there. It is home. Toscano speaks passionately and in great detail about the complex's founder and namesake Rev. Msgr. John V. Coffield, his family reverend. He even has a book that chronicles the life and achievements of Coffield. JOSHUA SUDOCK, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Rosa Velasco, 46, has lived at Coffield Apartments in Dana Point for 16 years. JOSHUA SUDOCK, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Rosa Velasco, 46, lives at Coffield Apartments in Dana Point with her three children and is very proud to be able to give them bedrooms they love. JOSHUA SUDOCK, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Rosa Velasco, 46, lives at Coffield Apartments in Dana Point with her three children and is very proud to be able to give them bedrooms they love. JOSHUA SUDOCK, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Leticia Soto, center, is the apartment manager for the Coffield affordable living complex in Dana Point. She resides there with her five children: Bobbi, 15, left, Diego, 3, Michael, 6, Jaqueline and a fifth not shown.JOSHUA SUDOCK, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

There's no sign proclaiming the name of the apartment complex on Domingo Avenue. But the residents who live there know the name and the legacy behind Coffield Apartments. Opened in 1983, the affordable housing complex has offered refuge to lower-income residents since before the city incorporated.

The apartments are named for Monsignor John Coffield – a longtime priest who worked at San Felipe de Jesus Catholic Church in Doheny Village. Coffield, an advocate for the poor, worked with Allen Baldwin and the Orange County Community Housing Corp. to get the affordable housing unit established, said Laticia Soto, the complex manager. Coffield died in 2005.

Photo-covered walls trace a family history in his small, cozy apartment. Located just off of Pacific Coast Highway, the sound of freeway traffic provides endless background noise. It isn't much, but if it weren't for the Coffield Apartments, Jesus Toscano wouldn't have a home.

Toscano has lived in the affordable housing unit in Doheny Village since the complex opened in 1983. Nearly 20 years later, the complex remains one of few resources available to lower-income residents in Dana Point.

Affordable housing is a vexing issue across Orange County, especially for affluent coastal cities such as Dana Point. And while housing development goals are established every seven or so years, many cities – Dana Point included – consistently fall short of meeting housing needs.

As the city works to update its housing element for the 2014-21 period, Dana Point officials are left to figure out how to provide more affordable housing in a place such as Dana Point that has a median home price of $539,000, according to DataQuick statistics.

A VALUABLE RESOURCE

State law requires cities to develop housing plans to accommodate current and future housing needs for all income levels. But like many cities in California, Dana Point has a limited number of options when it comes to providing affordable housing.

The Coffield Apartments were built in 1983 by the Orange County Community Housing Corp., which also maintains affordable housing complexes in Newport Beach and Santa Ana. Even then it was a challenge to establish the affordable housing complex, said Allen Baldwin, executive director for the corporation. They had to piecemeal the land together with four separate parcels they purchased, he said.

Since it opened, all 24 units in the complex have been consistently filled, Baldwin said. And the moment a unit opens up, someone is waiting to take it. The complex averages 15 to 20 people on its waitlist, said apartment manager Laticia Soto.

Soto moved into one of the units three years ago after her husband lost his job, and they had to give up their Mission Viejo house. A mother of five, she became the complex manager a little more than a year ago. Soto said the affordable housing is a resource that allows people and their families to survive, especially in an expensive town like Dana Point.

Rosa Velasco's family is one of them. A single mother of three, Velasco said she was staying in the living room of her sister's trailer with her children when she got approved for the affordable housing complex.

Access to housing has given her better resources to raise her children, something that is particularly important as her 26-year-old daughter has a mental disability, she said. Velasco will take care of her daughter for the rest of her life and with better housing she can offer her more, she said.

But there's not enough affordable housing in Dana Point to provide other families with that same opportunity.

'TOUGH NUT TO CRACK'

City Manager Doug Chotkevys said the problem is that the land in this built-out coastal city is so expensive, it discourages developers.

"I've met with affordable housing companies – profit and nonprofit – over the years since I've been in Dana Point. The problem is that the land is too valuable; they can't afford to acquire it," he said.

Chotkevys said given the limited amount of land available and the premium costs, it's difficult for affordable housing developers to create sufficient revenue to make the development pay out. He said he met with two affordable housing companies within the past six months that came to similar conclusions.

Affordable housing is further challenged by the lack of resources available through redevelopment agencies, Chotkevys said. The agencies helped distribute tax dollars to cities to fund redevelopment projects before the state officially abolished them last year.

But prior to that, cities such as Huntington Beach that embraced redevelopment agencies were able to meet much more of their housing needs, Chotkevys said.

However, the city of Dana Point never established a redevelopment agency, so money was never set aside to assist in the development of affordable housing, he said. Without set-aside funding, the city is left to rely on developers willing to invest the money in affordable housing. Chotkevys said he doesn't think that's likely.

"I just don't know how people can get their investment to pencil if they were to try and focus on a specific affordable housing project," he said. "I would love to see affordable housing, but the harsh reality of it is the value of the land and the fact that we're a built-out community. It's a really tough nut to crack."

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

Baldwin has spent his career dedicated to providing affordable housing and other resources to lower-income residents in Orange County, but he agrees there doesn't appear to be any kind of relief for the current stalemate.

"With the loss of redevelopment agency initiatives and tax credits are a little bit under attack right now, it's just easier for nonprofits and for-profits alike to build somewhere else," he said.

While there might not be much that can be done for housing in the short term, Baldwin said the cities can lay a foundation for the future by committing to requiring developers to build some affordable housing in exchange for approval on the development of more lucrative projects.

"Part of our responsibility is to convince (the city) of that or to get that into the housing element," he said. "We should at this time be looking down stream five or six years and make sure that some of that wording gets into the housing elements today so future councils can work with that."

Even if that language is worked into the housing element, at the end of the day the document is just a goal, Chotkevys said.

But for people like Soto and the residents of Coffield Apartments, calling it a goal isn't good enough.

"They need to build more (affordable housing) so people like (Velasco and Toscano) can have more opportunities," Soto said.

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